


Owe You An Apology

by buvbly



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Character Death, M/M, Mental Illness, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pining, Unfulfilled Love, so much pining, unbeta'd we die like men
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-01
Updated: 2019-05-18
Packaged: 2019-12-30 09:29:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18312866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buvbly/pseuds/buvbly
Summary: Hey kid, want some sadness? It's free!( ˘▽˘)っ♨One-shots of what kinda angst might happen with canon + fanon plots.





	1. picture frame

**Author's Note:**

> wow!! look at me taking 4 hours to write 300 words because i keep coming up with unsatisfying writing!!!  
> yay me

There he sat, solo at a dinner table meant for three. 

He knew that wallowing there in his own self-deserved pity wouldn’t change what had happened, what is happening, and what would happen. Nothing he could do now could change what fate had taken away. Yet, he sat there, deeming his next few hours to be his last, while scraping his bitten fingernail against the chipping wood of the picture frame. 

In his head, he hears a distant phantom ticking of a clock. 

Would you even be content then, Hank?  
Or would you be still be stranded in that goddamned head of yours? 

The lieutenant breathes through clenched teeth and snaps back into his chair, blinds his eyes looking at the too-bright light bolted on the ceiling. He downs another glass. The burning liquor still stings his raw throat even after so many years, the stench of it burning his nose and causing tears to prick at his eyes. 

It was naive of him to think that it would stop hurting with time. 

His neck is sore from looking down at his table for so long, looking down at the picture, at himself, and watching his own feet carry him to an early grave. Was never smart enough to look up from the half-empty bottle in his hand to see that, maybe, he could’ve found better. 

But how could you, if the best had been stolen away from you?

Glass starts to crack in his hand, spider-webbed lines faintly trace his fingertips. 

“Ah,” Hank sighs— he’s oh-so tired. “Shit.” 

He pushes his palms against the table top, and slowly steadies himself up to his feet. The world around him wobbles. His feet carry him across the creaky, wooden planks. He foregoes the chipped glass into the sink, and throws back a gulpful straight from the bottle. Uses the roughed-up ridges of the bottle to scrape against the wall, looking for the bump of a switch. 

The lieutenant flicks off the light.

And he greets the dark goodnight.


	2. silver rings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> what happens if you pair a person that's an embodiment of restlessness and is undoubtedly better than humans with a human?
> 
> Nines gets tired of playing human.

VERSION 2  
Gavin felt his knuckles turn white as he held onto the chain in his fist. The silver ring that’s looped through the metal swings, suspended in the air. 

He watches it go back and forth, the silvers clinking and scraping against each other. He uses his ring finger to keep the momentum. 

Gavin could watch it move forever. 

—

The detective had twisted the door handle to his apartment, kicked out his shoes and let his socked feet wander into a dark living room; cotton on plush wool. He remembered being curious as to why it was dark, eyes lowering to see if any light seeped through the cracks underneath closed doors. 

Nines was supposed to be home, hadn’t he?

Heart steady, he reached for the phone loosely kept in his pocket, looking for a text, a missed call or a voicemail that indicated as to where his partner was. In the dimmed room, the screen seemed almost blinding. Gavin had squinted his eyes— he saw no message.

He’d walked down the narrow hallway to their bedroom, back of his hand stifling down a yawn, feeling worn-out after writing countless reports. Shrugged off the feeling of unnerve along with his jacket, throwing it on the arm of his fusion couch. Gavin knew the way around their home like the back of his palm anyways. 

He probably just went on a last-minute grocery run. 

Except, Gavin couldn’t ever remember the last time Nines wasn’t punctual. Always, since they ever first locked eyes, he was on time— no earlier or later. He couldn’t stand being a second late from schedule. Gavin retreated back a few steps, finally flicking on a side-light that barely lit up the kitchen island, and swung the fridge door open. 

It had everything filled, organized by colour and weight and expiration dates. Even his favourite brand of chocolate had been piled up against the soda cans. He checked the cupboards that stood above his head, everything they could ever need or want that month had been there.

The detective shoved a fingertip onto his lip, teeth chewing on the abused nail. He squints at the labelled items, put in a way that spoke distinctly ‘Nines’. 

He solved things for a living, damnit, so what’s the mystery here?  
Gavin quickly snatches his phone up again, squinting into the brightness as he dials the number he knows so well. It connects even before the first ring. 

“Fuckin’ finally asshat,” He snorts, lips curling into a smile. He ignores the way his head calms the moment he knows that Nines is fine. “Where are you?” His voice rings into the empty apartment, quieter this time.

The voice he hears comes not from the speakers of his phone, but from their room. 

“Gavin.”

Humming, he shoved the cabinets and fridge closed with the bend of his elbow and slumps back towards their bedroom. He manages to drag his hand through his tousled hair and heavy eyelids before he twists the knob.

“So you were here the entire time with the lights off? What kinda shit are you pulling out in here?” Gavin says, peeking through his fingers. 

The room is dark— darker than the rest of the apartment despite the calm, blue hue that casts on every surface. The air feels heavy and its weight is plopped right onto Gavin’s shoulders. 

Slowly, Gavin’s hand drops from his face, and he squints; holding the flickering LED in his sight. “What’re you do—” Gavin flicks the lights on to answer his own questions, it’s set to a low dim from last night. “..ing,”

He catches Nines hunching over the bed. He’s wearing nothing but black slacks and the button up that Gavin had bought him last Christmas, his jacket folded neatly on top of a pile of others. Nines never got rid of it because ‘it was part of who he was’ and all that bull; Gavin couldn’t argue, you couldn’t take away something so trivial yet vital from someone. 

The light, blinking red, on his head sticks out like a sore thumb.

He steps closer towards the bed, and comes to a stop a foot away when he sees a box that’s filled. “What’s all this for?” Gavin’s head tilts as he notices the ajar closet, that’s missing half of its context. 

It’s all in the box. 

“Gavin,” Nines stretches to stand tall while he lifts the cardboard to sit on the bed. His sleek hands pick up the folded pile off the navy sheets, and plops it neatly into the box. The flaps are folded and held closed before he continues to speak. “I…”

His lips hesitate around unsaid words, doesn’t acknowledge the heavy weight in the air that presses against Gavin’s lungs. Nines’ tepid fingers unconsciously fiddling with the bottoms of his black dress shirt— even after years of seeing him in it, Gavin’s never any less starstruck by the sharp contrast of the dark against his pale skin, or the way the crisp collars presses on his adam’s apple. He looks up, eyes connecting; and there’s something behind those blue of his that tells Gavin all he needs to know. They stand there, looking— searching for something to be said. 

The two of them, so human— organic, real. 

Gavin needs to hear it. “What,” his head shakes with every doubt that’s passing through his mind. “Are you doing?” 

He’s met with silence. 

“Nines, answer me.” Gavin wants him to speak, but he doesn’t want to listen to what he might hear. “...Are you going somewhere?” His throat bobs as he gulps down the saliva building up.

Nines’ lip is caught between his teeth. The red at his temple remains a solid colour, giving Gavin all the clues that tells him that the thoughts that kept him awake at nights could be true. And after all the restless twists and turns, he’d always been comforted by the one and only person beside him. Nines had always said his thoughts were wrong, so why can’t he say the same now? Why can’t he reassure him like he always did? Gavin searches for something else, anything else in the room that could prove him wrong. He doesn’t. Gavin feels a different kind of pressure brewing in him, crackling under his skin. 

The lights. The extra food. The empty closet. The box. Gavin looks up and sees red. “So that’s it, huh?” He inches closer until they’re almost chest to chest with each other, his eyes pound with a pumping pressure but he won’t let it spill. “You’re just gonna up and leave with your shit?” 

There’s only so much silence he can take. He can’t fight against his thoughts breaking him down from the inside out with the way that Nines looks at him, like he’s mourning for what’s about to come. It doesn’t reassure him, it digs deep into him to the point where Gavin realises that he’s scared of the silence. 

“Answer me, you fuck!” Gavin shoves Nines away, away from the door out their room, out of their apartment. “Tell me what the phck you’re doing or I swear to God I will—”

“This,” A simple, soft tone knocks out all the sharp shouting. “Wasn’t what I ima—” Nines purses his lips, and Gavin feels his mind grind to a halt. His shoulders sag as he waits. “This isn’t what I was made to do.” For a moment, the silence fills the air.

“What?” Gavin’s cheek twitches as he waits for an explanation. He doesn’t get it, what do you mean you weren’t made to— 

“I’m too idle in this. I wasn’t made to.. play house. I’m advanced, the best of the best but somehow I miscalculated the difficulty of continuing this,” 

“Bullshit. Wasn’t all this,” Gavin’s hands flail around them, gesturing at everything they’ve shared together. “Wasn’t all this what you guys fought for? A name, wages, freedom and all that bullshit?” He wraps his hand around Nines’ wrist and slides it down ‘till he cradles his hand. Their rings are pressed together, but it reflects the red light pouring out Nines’ LED. “..For us?”

Nines looks down, sees their hands. He tightens his grip on Gavin’s before letting go. “...Yes, but perhaps, there is more out there.”

“More than me?”

“You know that isn’t what I mean,” His eyebrow twitches. “I can’t just sit here when I could go—” 

“Then take me with you!” Gavin’s hand is wrapped around his left, holding tight onto the ring he wears. It’s warm and ingrained into his skin, it was a part of him— something trivial yet vital to him. It was his, it was theirs. Two sides of the same coin, the left and right, up and down; one could never be without the other half. 

That was what they promised to each other. 

“I can’t be alone again.”

Nines face twitches, his eyebrow, his lips. There’s something behind those eyes that have made up their mind. Slowly, with his middle and thumb finger he slides off the ring. He picks up the box and carries it by his side. He steps closer to Gavin, and closer to the door. 

“I’m sorry Gavin,” He’s sad but he acts like he can’t fix it, like he isn’t the cause of what’s happening. Nines lays his ring into Gavin’s palm. “But it was inevitable.” 

Three steps. A pause. Gavin turns around and sees Nines take one last look. Six steps, and a door closes. 

—

The ring shouldn’t be a rope that wrapped around his neck. It was supposed to be on Nines’ finger. It was meant to be worn. 

Gavin sighs. He slows the swing to a motionless piece and lets it clump down onto his open palm. Silver hits silver when it lands on the twin ring that’s still molded into Gavin’s hand. 

“Huh.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading that trainwreck of a writing!  
> any prompts? vvvvvvv


	3. ying or yang

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Connor did a whoopsie :/

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...yeah.. this is a repost, srry 'bout that.

Connor wasn't a deviant, no. It didn't sound right coming from the tip of his tongue.

Yet he wasn't the machine that Amanda thought he would be.

He'd become a liability to the investigation, where he both couldn't pull the trigger on dysfunctional androids, yet couldn't seem to sympathize with the living.  
The troubled shook his head as he stared at the reflection that rippled in the water. A blossom petal drifted across the surface of the water, wavering the image of his face with its motion.

"It seems like the investigation has come to a dead end, Connor," Her faux calm sent shivers up his spine. He didn't want to be deactivated, didn't want his existence to be stored into a chip and crushed into dust. 

"I cannot keep your deviancy from stopping my plans." 

The garden that was stored in the crooks and nicks of his mind had lost its zen, its peaceful charm that could lull any problems to bed. Now what was left were the sturdy foundations that held the place together, any deteriorating supports tied together with overgrown vines that tangled around themselves.

He felt her hands cup his chin, delicate fingers that felt soft and plump sensations through his sensors. His eyes left his own and instead looked up to the eyes of Amanda's.  
Her face lacked any deep wrinkles that should've been present on a woman her age. Her lips full and tinted, set in a line. Amanda's face was patience personified, yet her controlling eyes held Connor in place on his knees.

"I am not a deviant, Amanda. I conduct daily self-diagnosing tests that come back positive every time."

Connor was not a deviant, not a living being. He could not feel what he pretended to show, could not feel the act he put on to please the doubtful minds.

He’d seen the ugly side of both humans and androids alike, and how desperation or jealousy could rot someone from the inside out. Met the barrel of a gun and the point of a knife like an old companion, and saw the amount of times unruly death stole promising futures from people.

He'd seen a mother nearing her death, crawling towards her newborn— wishing that she could still watch her kid blossom and cherish in a new world. The twisted limbs and crushed bones of her bottom half spilled red on the floor that would soon be her deathbed. The mother had heaved her last breath, a tear sliding down her cheek and landing onto the child as she held him in her arms.

Everytime, Connor had turned and walked out the room, face cold and unaffected. 

The grip on his chin tightened by a fraction, something that would've passed by unnoticed had he not been an android.

"Then what is it that's keeping you from stopping Markus? The Revolution?" Her hand on his chin shook with unreleased anger as she forced Connor to stand. "You are an advanced prototype that was made for this exact investigation, why is it that you keep coming back to me with failure?"

The simulated wind rustled the leaves, the grass, his hair. He shivered with the cold sting it left on his skin. Connor could only stare back at his handler as he found no words to explain the paradox he was experiencing.

Amanda broke the tension with a huff and faced her body towards her wall of roses, returning to tend to the needs of their nurturing.

"..It's the lieutenant, isn't it, Connor?"

He paused. The android knew that the lieutenant had a tendency to.. influence his performance. Somehow meeting the expectations of the man made a feeling strum through his being. It was warm, almost comforting to know that the lieutenant was proud of his actions. Connor could easily get the man to praise him again, if only his quota was not on the opposite side of the spectrum from Amanda's.

Connor could see the spark in her gleaming eyes, he knew then that he'd have to choose between two sides. A smirk erupted onto her stoic features, something in Connor's inner workings seemed to halt.

"Prove to me that you can still be deemed useful," She gave a pause as she brought a rose up to her nostrils.

"Neutralize the lieutenant, and I promise you I won't deactivate you."

—

Connor's shoes were coated in mud by the time he rounded the house twice in the dark. The squish of the earth beneath him hidden by the soft pattering of rain.

He calculated the possibility of succeeding.

The androids watched through the tiny gap in the curtains. The two heat signals that radiated from the living room stayed motionless, save for the movement of breathing. It was slow,   
shallow, a snore here or there was loud enough to alert Connor.

Hank had left the back door open a fraction. The flickering of colour and muffled cheers and narrating told Connor that Hank fell asleep on his couch, watching a reply of the recent Detroit Gears game.

91%

It was almost too easy, too accessible.

His hand quivered as he motioned for it to push the door open. The hinges squeaked with the pressure and too little oiling.

Sumo snorted from his tiny corner of the living room, and trotted off towards the uninvited visitor that welcomed himself into the room.

Its tail wagged eagerly, and sniffed at Connor's hands in hopes to get a pat or two. Its nose bumped onto the cold metal that sat in his palm.

Connor continued to make his way towards the unconscious man that was splayed on the couch, he could feel the vibrations of Sumo's growl through the wood planks of the house. It surprised the android, as the dog was always all naive and soft-edges.

The mild shaking seemed to stir the man from his light slumber. Iced-blue eyes peek from beneath his graying eyelashes.

His pupils seemed to shrink from the glint of the shiny pistol.

"Connor? ...What the fuck are you doing?" He laid there, motionless, with his stomach bulging, shirt untucked and stained with alcohol. The bags under his eyes somehow seemed darker and   
more prominent against the harsh lights from the television. 

The two sat there, frozen in an atmosphere so thick it choked even Connor. He could see the way Hank’s heart beat erratically in his chest, the way the blood it pumped thrummed through his veins and making his fingers twitch. All the rough-edges, unpolished and blemished held a certain appeal.

The obvious imperfections was what made him so human— so alive. It was something machines and anything artificial could never perfect; Connor could never be able to achieve this sort of humanity in his existence, however short or long it be. He remembers Amanda, and how he didn’t want to go so soon. 

It was conflicting. He isn’t a deviant, he wasn’t defective and broken. No, Connor would not accept that he had become the thing he was afraid of supposed to be hunting. There is nothing wrong with him, there is nothing wrong with aiming the muzzle of the gun at the center of Hank’s eyes. 

He decided then, that he was no deviant.

"Fuckin.." Hank snorted, mind still blurred from being awoken so abruptly. He didn't know that this wasn't just another one of his nightmares. "I know you’re not gonna shoot anyways,"

He was a machine assigned with a task, and that was what he was going to do. He doesn’t want to disappoint Amanda any more than he’s had. 

"I'm sorry, Hank."

His finger rests against the trigger, and he pulls.

—

Connor still hadn't felt anything, except for the warmth of the blood and matter that splattered against his cheek.


	4. 3210

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> nines is an idiot  
> but so is gavin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i do notice that it is kinda.. choppy, but i cant find it in myself to rewrite the entire thing

Anger was his default. His defence to everything, everyone and his dumb, idiotic self. 

For so long he had stayed mad at the world and at the reflection in his mirror, because that’s all he ever knew how to do. Anger, shame, anger, guilt— it filled him up to the brim. It was what he had learnt to be most effective; it shut people up from probing and prodding him for all he knew. That’s what he noticed every night with mom and dad from when he was still too young to understand any different. 

Gavin never had the courage to truly say what he felt on the inside; couldn’t mold the thoughts inside his head into anything other than than tightly clenched fists and bloody knuckles. He never knew how to form them into coherent words and to convey that he  _ could  _ and  _ does  _ care. He hadn’t known any better, didn’t want to know better for all he cared. 

He didn’t  _ want _ to even when one day, he stopped chewing at the tip of his pen, and looked up across his screen, just to catch his partner’s eyes on him— on his own lips and teeth that caught the metal nub. It followed every lick, swallow and bob of his mouth. It was entranced, for a reason the detective could not find, and it set something pooling down his stomach from the way its eyes seemed to grow black from something Gavin wanted to feign ignorance. The detective put the pen away, licking his chapped lips before trying to block his partner from his sight. He knew from the way its eyes fluttered that he tried to swipe off a  _ ‘software stability’ _ message off to the side. Nines, unstable, because of  _ Gavin? _

He tried to think that it was some other entity worthy of his partner’s attention was what the thing was looking it, he thought it could’ve never been him. But the way its eyes trained on his every tiny, minuscule movement with eyes that burned through his skin made him reach beneath the covers that night, knuckles instead turning bloody from trying to bite down on his sounds. 

Broken, spent, and a name spilling from his lips, Gavin kept it all under covers. He planned to keep it there in his bedroom, and never to bring it out to light— lest his partner finds out and starts to curve away from his hand like it was a plague.

He  _ still _ didn’t want to when Nines rung the water out from a hand towel and wiped it against the dried blood against his cheek, flaking each crust off raw skin. The pads of its fingers pressed lightly against his cheeks as it tilted Gavin to face it. He felt the soft warmth that cradled his face. 

Cut and bruised was Gavin’s entire being, damaged beyond redemption, and he wanted nothing else but to crawl and hide. But the way Nines still gazed at him like he was perfect made something in him melt and mold into his arms. 

It was a different kind of warmth that burnt Gavin’s skin. 

He  _ didn’t want to _ when he glared up at his idiot of a partner over a cup of coffee the plastic had made, muttering some string on incoherence, and saw the edge of its lips twitch upwards in amusement. He couldn’t stop himself from being sucked into those eyes that seem to gleam with a mischief and challenge that was something he wasn’t used to. It was a dance with fire between the two of them, both twirling and jabbing at each other to see who’d fold first. It was dangerous territory, he knew, but burning himself was not something Gavin wasn’t used to.

It chuckled once the detective muttered a final  _ ‘dipshit’ _ , white peeking through the curve of his lips and low octaves rattling something in his chest. He couldn’t tell if the sudden warmth in his chest was from his drink or from the sun that came in through the window. He knew for sure that it wasn’t because of the stupid curve of the thing’s pink-dusted lips. 

Surely?

He didn’t want to give anything back, was what Gavin told himself. But the way he whispers Nine’s name like a mantra at night says otherwise.

It scared him, the uncertainty and unwanted hesitations. 

Scared him so much that Gavin wanted to swipe that smirk off Nines’ face, and did so when he edged his knuckles into the hard plastic of his abdomen. His skin had split and tinged red so quickly that he was sure that the thing would brush him off and walk away. He knew it would happen, knew from all the thousand times it’s happened.

But the thing had held his hands between its oh-so gently, skin radiating warmth even though it was wires that pumped underneath. Asked him quietly, words hidden beneath the noise of the breakroom, if he was alright; its eyes flicking up to look at him underneath his perfectly measured eyelashes.

Gavin snatched his own hand away from the ever-growing heat, and wiped the blood on the fabric of his pants— like he was disgusted of touching its hands, but truly he knew that he was disturbed about his own thoughts and actions.

He walked away instead, to cut himself off before anything even had a chance to bloom. But even someone as deniable as him could see the roots that tangled them together. He was in too far, but he’d never acknowledge it because he’s scared of what would happen after. 

But the thing—it swore that it was the most advanced of them all, the best of the best, even— kept chasing after him, even when Gavin spat and kicked and threw tantrums like a god-unruly kid. It kept holding his hands like back then, and pulled him into his chest whenever he needed it. He did anything that Gavin wanted but couldn’t ask for because Nines always knew him more than himself. 

Even after getting shanked in the android-equivalent of a heart and needing to be hung on a machine, all because the idiot couldn’t stand still when the perpetrator threatened to slice human skin. Nines had opened his eyes and the first thing he did was to search the room for him. Even then, he stared at Gavin like he was the meaning of his living existence. 

Arms carefully embraced his sides, like he was touching something precious, and they melted into each other. Eyes wide and dilated, he saw for the very first time. 

What an idiot, he was.

Or was it the both of them? 

Because Nines was smart, he can  _ see _ the coward that Gavin truly is, but the way he chooses to ignore it in favour of thinking that Gavin is special was his downfall. 

And Gavin wasn’t stuck in constant fighting with himself anymore, he could’ve learnt to grow some fucking balls for once in his life. So many chances, he was given, to snub out his own pride for one tiny moment, to take out the cigarettes he occupies his lips with, and to say that:

He’d fallen, tripped in their little dance until he was engulfed into the fire that warmed his being. 

But still, Gavin couldn’t shake the fear that their inevitable falling out would come far too soon. 

So, his stuck another stick between his teeth and inhaled the smoke ‘till it was damn near choking him. He shouldered away the one thing in his life that could see him as he was and continued to even after his shoulder bloomed bruises from busting into hard plastic. Gavin went back to the shouting and throwing of clenched fists, emotions fiery than ever because he’s so fucking sick with himself. 

Gavin, was never sober for longer than he needed to be, because his pent up frustrations kept rushing towards him whenever he wasn’t high on some drug or nose deep in the bottom of a bottle.

His past mixed with his now, and every feeling, old and new, made him more angrier, hornier, restless and impulsive, and it brought all the more shame and guilt when he was down this high.

And he’s so tired of it.

  
A stupid,  _ stupid _ , idiot, was what they both were.  

**Author's Note:**

> any prompts? gotta keep writing to improve ya know  
> thanks


End file.
